Coming off of a season-opening 45-20 loss to Allatoona Aug. 31 and a 49-0 defeat against East Paulding Sept. 7, the Woodland Wildcats will host the New Manchester Jaguars this Friday.

You can’t win them all, but in this case, Woodland head football coach Vince DiLorenzo, was not upset about his team losing to Allatoona — rather he was disappointed in how they lost.

“We did not play to our potential. There weren’t many parts of our football team that I was pleased with, except our effort,” DiLorenzo said last week.

In this game, the Bucs had a total of 17 penalties, costing them more than 100 yards and causing two touchdowns to be called back. Even with all these errors, the Wildcats could not capitalize on opportunities to turn the game around.

After such a performance, DiLorenzo said he has a plan to prevent this from happening again.

“This Friday our goals are to see that we have the right defensive players playing the right position, no missed assignments on offense and not allowing any big plays in the kicking game,” he said.

While his team fell short in game one, DiLorenzo still sees potential in his players and hopes his team can turn things around as the season continues.

“When I think about the potential of our football team, every phase has the ability to play the way winners play. That way involves hustle, pride, class and aggressiveness,” he said.

Moving on to this Friday’s game, DiLorenzo has yet to see any film on New Manchester’s team, but their record thus far in the season says a lot.

“I have not seen New Manchester on film, so it’s hard to say how we compare. I do know they are well coached,” DiLorenzo said.

Just opening last year, New Manchester was undefeated after two games in its first season of a full varsity schedule, beating Paulding County and Lithia Springs.

As the Wildcats go into this game, they must put the past games behind them and focus on the game at hand now.

With a 10-game region schedule, a single loss at this point in the season does not put a team out of the running for the playoffs.

“We are a program that has to play every team the same way. That way is for us to play at the highest level possible and not worry about what the other team is doing, or the score,” DiLorenzo said.

*We welcome your comments on the stories and issues of the day and seek to provide a forum for the community to voice opinions. All comments are subject to moderator approval before being made visible on the website but are not edited. The use of profanity, obscene and vulgar language, hate speech, and racial slurs is strictly prohibited. Advertisements, promotions, spam, and links to outside websites will also be rejected. Please read our terms of service for full guides